![\"Thomas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2.85152141.jpg\")
Thomas Tuchel and Harry Kane have a tough clash ahead (Nick Potts\/PA)<\/p>\nHaving topped Group L with victories against Croatia and Panama sandwiching the stalemate with Ghana, it looked like Sir Gareth Southgate\u2019s successor would fall at the first hurdle of the knockouts.<\/p>\n
Brian Cipenga\u2019s early strike and an exceptional display from DR Congo goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi had England facing a round-of-32 exit every bit as humiliating as the Euros loss to Iceland a decade ago.<\/p>\n
But Harry Kane, a member of that defeated side, scored twice in a 2-1 turnaround that sets up an unmissable encounter against Mexico, where the challenges include playing more than 2,000 metres above sea level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the heat and the humidity will not be the problem for us,\u201d boss Tuchel said ahead of the trip to Mexico City. \u201cWe are used to that. We are used to that from training times and our prep camp in Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy understanding is that we cannot adapt to the altitude. That is just a huge advantage that Mexico will have. It just takes too much time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have only three days in between this match. This is physically just not possible to adapt to the altitude, which is quite high.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that before, so this is just something, it\u2019s just a disadvantage, with which we will have to deal, and I think we showed the attitude that we are ready for that, and from there we go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuchel warned a \u201ca lot, a lot, a lot of obstacles\u201d await England in Mexico City, but says travelling to take on El Tri is \u201cone of the most beautiful fixtures\u201d you can have.<\/p>\n
Ecuador crumbled at the Azteca on Tuesday evening as the hosts roared out of the blocks to win 2-0 after an hour\u2019s delay, which prevented Tuchel from making an early start to England\u2019s scouting process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was happy to watch the first half and then it was not on due to the delay and I slept at 10 o\u2019clock (when it kicked off),\u201d the England boss said with a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very unusual for me, but I have somehow a crazy early bedtime during this World Cup, and I didn\u2019t see it until now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the result, of course and I saw that I didn\u2019t concede, and yeah, it will be a tough one but at the same time it will be a beautiful one, and very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
England will fly to Mexico City on Friday having trained in Kansas City, where they returned straight after the DR Congo tie in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
There is plenty for Tuchel to ponder before the last-16 tie, while Reece James and Jarell Quansah will push to return from the injuries that ruled them out of the round of 32.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s see how much this cost us,\u201d Tuchel said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t play overtime, which is a good thing.<\/p>\n
Thomas Tuchel and Harry Kane have a tough clash ahead (Nick Potts\/PA)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an early trip home, we have a brilliant facility now. The most important thing is that we recover because we will travel early, I guess, to get the travelling out of the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this helps, you know, like we have now this experience together, and the players are used to that rhythm, they love this rhythm and let\u2019s see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having topped Group L with victories against Croatia and Panama sandwiching the stalemate with Ghana, it looked like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-233585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}